Watching ABQ move from 1950 to the 21st Century, one bike lane at a time

Month: August 2008

As of tomorrow afternoon, my school will go to Hell in a handbasket. Both of our administrative secretaries are retiring. In other words, the two people who do the most work, know more about any facet of the school operation and have served as the singular glue preventing the whole place from figuratively and literally… Read More Requiem For A Nightmare: Our School Secretaries Are Leaving

Remember, dear Babble reader, our discussion of a couple weeks back regarding wasted school days? I’d like to nominate another candidate: the Magazine Salesman Fundraiser Assembly (MSFA). My first brush with this one happened yesterday, and it will take many, many mental showers before I feel anywhere close to ethically clean again. Here’s how it… Read More A Proposed Addition to Our List of School-Day Wasting Assemblies

-Eamon Mac Mahon, Associated Press Or in this case, “TIDRA”: Things I Didn’t Run Across. I’ve always been interested in the more subtle forms of press censorship, in particular the gatekeeping role played by local newspapers. The photo above accompanies an Associated Press story by Rob Gillies entitled “Critics: Canada’s Oil Boom an Environmental Bust”.… Read More TIRA: An Ugly Oil Shale Photograph Many Won’t See

Every organization has strangely named departments, job titles and such, but you can’t beat public education when it comes to bizarrely misnamed occupations. School “Counselor” for instance. Now there probably was a time, way back in the hazy John Dewey past when school counselors actually counseled students about things like where to go to college,… Read More A Public School Teacher Reflects Upon School "Counselors"

My moratorium on any news of a political sort is going pretty well, but I made the big mistake of seeing a “report” last night on the just-concluded special session. It must have been exceedingly “special”. Our “rebate” for the horrors of high-priced gasoline:Up to $30,000 a household…you get fifty bucks (plus $50 for each… Read More Your New Mexico Legislature: Now That’s "Special"!

Even after only a few days of the new school year, it’s quite obvious that the big change at my school, Jefferson MS, is the ubiquitous presence of our two new school cops. These guys, one of whom is wearing a gun (a fact noted by every student with a combined sense of awe and… Read More A Middle School Rhapsody in Blue: Cops On Campus